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Friday, November 30, 2001
Talk of ECSU
By: Robin Reese
What was your most memorable Christmas moment?
Lashonda McClary:
Freshman
“My most memorable Christmas would
have to be last Christmas when I spent
two weeks in Miami, Florida with my
cousins going shopping.”
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Natasha Ellis:
Senior
“My most memorable Christmas is sneaking
into the living room on Christmas Eve to see
what Santa brought me. Watching the
flashing lights move along each branch. That
was always so amazing to me.”
Joseph Bizzell:
Sophomore
“My most memorable Christmas
would have to be the first
Christmas I spent with my grand
mother In New York.”
Cedric Booth:
Junior
“When all nine of my aunts and uncles stayed
Christmas Eve at my grandmother’s and we all
got up the next morning and had breakfast and
opened presents and had Christmas dinner
later that day.”
Photos by Inger Parker
A Driven 2001 Grad Takes An Untraditional Route
By Dan Ruff
NEW YORK—(COLLEGIATE
PRESSWIRE)—Oct. 23, 2001—The
summer before my senior year at
Cornell, I worked at a bulge-bracket
Investment bank and entered my
final year of school In the enviable
position of having a job all lined up
when I graduated. By May, 1 was
looking fon/vard to the challenging
world I was about to enter as an
entry-level banker In New York City.
Then came the call. Due to the
downturn of the economy I was
asked to consider pushing back my
start date at the investment bank for
a year, in exchange for a lump sum
of money and a guaranteed job with
Ihe analyst class of 2002.
At first, I had the normal type-A
response — I thought It was crazy to
give up the security of a high-paying,
prestigious job for the insecurity of
being jobless in a terrible job market.
I could travel for a year, but what
would business schools think? I
could try to find work at another
Investment bank, but my friends
were having no success In similar
Job hunts. I was going to have to turn
down the offer.
Then, after talking with friends
who had been out of school for a few
years (and had the perspective that
most college seniors lack) I was
convinced to rethink my reaction.
Never again, they told me, would 1 be
paid to try whatever I wanted for a
year. With that truth in mind, I signed
the deferral papers, grabbed the
: money, and went looking for some
thing interesting to do in my “year
off.”
I focused my search on oppor
tunities that would offer me experi
ences 1 was not going to get at a
large firm. 1 wanted to work in a
small, entrepreneurial company
where 1 would be surrounded by
mentors and have the opportunity
to do work that would help drive the
business. After weighing my op
tions, I did the unthinkable: I ac
cepted a job at a dot-com start-up.
With Internet companies drop
ping like flies, leaving thousands of
employees out of work, clutching
worthless stock options that were
supposed to make them millionaires
by the time they were 30, everyone
thought 1 was crazy. Why in the
world would I waste my time and
energy on another dot-com disas
ter?
The answer was simple:
Marketboy.com was not your typical
dot-com and the founders were not
your typical twenty-something
hotshots of the late 90’s. After
talking to the founders, May Lee
and Casimir WIerzynski, I learned
that, unlike all the fallen dot-coms,
they didn’t look at their business as
something different from all other
businesses simply because it was
located on the Internet. This was a
new concept.
There was another draw: May
and Cas are former Goldman Sachs
traders who had left the world I was
planning on entering to take their
careers In a whole new direction. I
found this intriguing. I wanted to
know why two incredibly successful,
30-something, Wall Street executives
would leave the security of invest
ment banking to launch a dot-com at
a time when the industry had just
imploded.
Marketboy.com is an e-com-
merce site that applies the principles
used in modern securities markets to
online consumer electronics (like
MP3 players and DVD players)
shopping. May and Cas have de
signed software that replicates Wall
Street’s “continuous double auc
tions,” the only tried and true method
of electronic commerce allowing
customers to instantly compare
prices, buy or bid on any product
from any merchant. And it works.
Consumers have the ability to search
for the lowest price on a product
and, if the price isn’t low enough to
enter his own bid.
As a member of this 6-person
team I spend my days working
alongside both May and Cas and get
to see how they build the business
day by day. I watch how they develop
partnerships with over 60 merchant
vendors and build trust with loyal
consumers. And I am part of this
process. I have responsibilities 1
would never have in another environ
ment and am learning so much
about what it takes to make a busi
ness successful.
I had never considered working
at a dot-com, and now I’m in a posi
tion where I research different plans
for my company, discuss the options
with May and Cas and implement the
plan. This responsibility of both devel
opment and implementation allows me
to see a project from start to finish and
gives me a real sense of accomplish
ment and leadership. I am able to
provide real value to my company.
1 have learned that there are many
more options than the ones we believe
exist when we graduate college. 1 look
at May and Cas who have fused their
secure, traditional backgrounds with the
uncertainty of an Internet future and
see that It works because they were
able to take the knowledge gleaned
from both the distant and recent past to
determine this new model and this new
future. Most importantly, they were
flexible enough with their careers and
the principles of different businesses to
build something new for both the indus
try and themselves.
I look fon/vard to starting my job
with the analyst class of 2002, but I
think about what I would have missed
had I declined the offer of the year off-
Oh sure. I’d be staying at great hotels
and lunching at trendy restaurants, but
I’m not sure if I would have learned how
many options 1 really have and how
many different directions I can ulti
mately take my career.
Dan Ruff is a recent graduate of
Cornell University. He currently works
for Marketboy, the only ecommerce site
that allows consumers the ability to
compare prices, buy or bid on con
sumer electronics all in one place.
Source:
Marketboy.com